150 The American Naturalist. [February, 



method merely because it produces inconvenience and confusion and 

 adopt the international principle, any more than that thev will even 

 adopt the metric system or the centigrade thermometer or decimal 

 system of money. In this section of modern English nomenclature he 

 enlarges upon this in discussing " the renewed Kew rule" which is 

 nothing but Bentham's rule again. He then discusses author-citation. 

 After devoting sometime to criticising the Boisierian or "pietistic" 

 method, he gives his own view which is somewhat novel. The follow- 

 ing extract also shows a characteristic of the book which strikes one 

 very oddly at first. That is its polyglot composition (of also the title). 

 English, French and Latin come unexpectedly upon the reader in the 

 midst of the German on every page. The words in italics are in 

 English in the original. 



"Convolvulus reptans L. 1753 = Ipomcea aquatica Forsk 1775 

 (misfortune or mostly piracy) == Ipomoea reptans L (pietism) = 

 Ipomcea reptans (L) Pois (seduction) = Ipomoea reptans Pois (L) 

 (correctness) = Ipomoea reptans Pois (International):' He thinks 

 that " Ipomoea reptans Pois (Convolvulus reptans L.) " is the proper 

 citation, and as an abbreviation of that he gets I. reptans Pois. (L.) 

 " Earlier," he continues, " it seemed to me indifferent in which position 

 the two authors were to be cited. But the citation of both authors in 

 the sequence which I have denominated 'seduction ' seduces through 

 the practice of abbreviation by omitting the ' Pois,' unconsciously to 



the false method of pietism and is therefore to be rejected." 



Admitting that "the citation of two authors alone leads to order" 

 does it follow that the evil he deprecates will be obviated by the 

 method proposed ? Will a lazy or a hasty man be more certain to 

 abbreviate by omitting the last author than by leaving out the first? 

 Will he not be pretty sure to leave out the name in parenthesis 

 wherever it stands? Or at least will he not be governed by a bias 

 toward pietism or the reverse quite as much as by the order in which 

 the names are written ? It seems to me that his objection is fanciful 

 and that his citation might well be termed " distraction " as increasing 

 the already too numerous methods of citation. 



After the preface there is a long introduction. He first treats of 

 the materials for revision. Section 1 is devoted to a severe criticism 

 of Durand's Index to Bentham and Hooker's Genera Plaiitarum— 

 " BHgp" he abbreviates it. Among other things he charges that a 

 large part of the index, including some errors, is borrowed without 

 credit from Pfeiffer's Nomenclator Botanies. 



